(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[b sharp]

Lane Haygood I think I agree with almost your entire post. My only quibble
would regard where you say:

>It may not be that the Hierogrammates are "morally superior" to  
>humans, in that we all have the same capacity for judging moral and  
>immoral actions, but rather that their nature makes them able to  
>perceive moral dimensions on acts that we cannot.

Well, my claim has all along been that Hierogrammates are superior moral judges
to humans based on their superior perception of moral (and other) dimensions.

\

Roy, sorry if I wasn't clear in agreeing with you that the Hierogrammates possess a
lesser moral perception than God.  And I think we agree they are superior to 
humans in this regard?

Roy says:
>Tzadkiel was not only an admitted liar, he was a cheater as well.

But lying and cheating are considered immoral acts by humans. And not always. 
Many police and military types are specially trained in such tactics and they are
considered moral actions because they help stop bad guys.  Perhaps Tzadkiel feels 
no more guilt in lying to Severian than we would feel for using artificial mating
calls to lure animals out of a toxic waste spill area.

and:
>Being elected to a given position is hardly a qualifier for the morality of
>the elected.

Nobody doubts that elections are an imperfect system for choosing morally superior
individuals, relying as they do on imperfect human judgement. But the fact that we 
continue to engage in elections and other selection processes for judges and justices
etc. proves that humanity currently thinks it is possible to ascertain the moral superiority
of one person over another.

and:
>You have presented a closed system that, by
>definition, not only excludes challenges from outside the system, it
>dismisses those challenges as down-right impertinent.

Not true. I'm saying that if the Hierogrammates are as Gene Wolfe seems to present them,
then humans are no more able to judge their morality than animals are able to judge the
morality of human behavior.  Hierogrammates might reasonably be judged by members of
their own race, or by other beings with equal or greater moral perception.

(there is dialog in UotNS suggesting that humans would be like animals on some 
planets and to some other races of beings)

-bsharp

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